Rankdown III - TSPDT Top 100 - Congrats to the winner!

[sol]

Oh no, it's time to disappoint cinewest again. Yes, I have seen Sansho the Bailiff and yes, I too am surprised that it has made it to the top tier of the list given how early on Ugetsu was eliminated. It's also one of of two films left that isn't a 9 or 10 in my books, however, selling people into slavery could count as a crime and WE NEED MORE 1950s CRIME DRAMAS, so I'll just try to get rid of a film for good that isn't in my top 10 favourite films of its year, let alone my top 10 favourite films on the TSP list.

Cutting Mulholland Dr. again.

Ball is in OldAle's court if he wants to save it or not, but I won't be vetoing Stalker, Vertigo or Late Spring and I know that he's a big fan of them.

remaining films

2 Vertigo
7 The Godfather
13 Ladri di biciclette
15 Taxi Driver
19 Persona
29 Zerkalo
39 The General
41 Rear Window
46 Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
47 The Third Man
50 Mulholland Dr.
52 Stalker
55 Chinatown
56 M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder
73 Det sjunde inseglet
75 La battaglia di Algeri
80 Banshun
91 Sanshô dayû
99 L'année dernière à Marienbad

Selection Order

1. Coryn - 0 veto remaining
2. beasterne - 0 vetoes remaining
3. Fergenaprido - 0 vetoes remaining
4. OldAle1 - 1 veto remaining
5. brokenface - 0 vetoes remaining
6. jeff_v - 0 veto remaining
7. Obgeoff - 0 vetoes remaining
8. blocho - 0 vetoes remaining
9. Onderhond - 0 vetoes remaining
10. perceval - 0 vetoes remaining
11. sol - 2 vetoes remaining
12. RolandKirkSunglasses - 0 veto remaining
13. toromash - 0 vetoes remaining

[RolandKirkSunglasses]

Lots of very good films remaining, I'll have to cut The Third Man because I like the others a little bit more.

remaining films

2 Vertigo
7 The Godfather
13 Ladri di biciclette
15 Taxi Driver
19 Persona
29 Zerkalo
39 The General
41 Rear Window
46 Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
47 The Third Man
50 Mulholland Dr.
52 Stalker
55 Chinatown
56 M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder
73 Det sjunde inseglet
75 La battaglia di Algeri
80 Banshun
91 Sanshô dayû
99 L'année dernière à Marienbad

Selection Order

1. Coryn - 0 veto remaining
2. beasterne - 0 vetoes remaining
3. Fergenaprido - 0 vetoes remaining
4. OldAle1 - 1 veto remaining
5. brokenface - 0 vetoes remaining
6. jeff_v - 0 veto remaining
7. Obgeoff - 0 vetoes remaining
8. blocho - 0 vetoes remaining
9. Onderhond - 0 vetoes remaining
10. perceval - 0 vetoes remaining
11. sol - 2 vetoes remaining
12. RolandKirkSunglasses - 0 veto remaining
13. toromash - 0 vetoes remaining

[OldAle1]

Ball is in OldAle's court if he wants to save it or not, but I won't be vetoing Stalker, Vertigo or Late Spring and I know that he's a big fan of them.

Thanks for removing the suspense! Now I have to decide which if any of them I should try to save. Very hard as they are respectively 4th, 5th and 10th on my all-time list. Of course if I don't veto any of them, then none of them make it to the final round and I have only somewhat-lesser favorites to promote...

Choices, choices.

[sol]

Of course if I don't veto any of them, then none of them make it to the final round and I have only somewhat-lesser favorites to promote...

Yeah, I'm in a similar boat at the moment. Will need to see what toromash kicks off before deciding what to do. There has definitely been at least one film eliminated so far this round that I would like to save...

[cinewest]

Wow, i have to admit, i never would have imagined the list that remains. Maybe 1 or 2 of them. Of the 5 that haven't been touched, 4 of them come from the bottom half of the list (2 in the 90-100 range), and the one remaining top 15 film is the least likely one (aside from The Searchers) I thought would have made it, and the same is true of my own last favorite on the board.

Have to create an award for Sol this game, who seems to have out strategized everyone else. It certainly helps if you can be happy with a bunch of different potential winners. My big question now is how he will use his vetoes?

[toromash]

M for murder is the lowest ranked film left and part of my all time. So it has to be that movie, which gets the axe

[sol]

Have to create an award for Sol this game, who seems to have out strategized everyone else. It certainly helps if you can be happy with a bunch of different potential winners.

Yep. There is enough overlap between the TSP Top 100 and my own Top 100 that this game has (for me) always been about what I don't want to win more than what I do want to win.

Regarding vetoes, I have a bit less than 24 hours, so keeping with being strategic and all, I want to see what OldAle does first. If he chooses to use his veto on anything other than Mulholland Dr., I will use up both my vetoes so that we are all on the same level playing field for the final round. If he chooses not to use his veto, I will veto one film only so that I have the same number of vetoes as him going into the final round. All up to Ale now...

[beasterne]

OP is finally updated through toromash's cut. Thanks for keeping this running everyone

Really sad to see some of the last few cuts--I was crossing my fingers that Banshun, The General, The Third Man, and M, as well as a few cuts from the previous round like The Grand Illusion could sneak through since they hadn't been touched yet. But still very interested to see how this all shakes out, and I have a few favorites yet to pull for

[cinewest]

Right at the point of greatest disappointment and tedium, the players and game seemed to turn and become intriguing. Even Coryn, who annoyed me the most with his/her cuts has been redeemed by saving perhaps the best film remaining in the game.
The 4 untouched films are a total surprise to me, and not in a bad way. Would have hated to see my favorites lose out to some of the others.
Only one is an English language film (which was cut earlier on), though I expect more will be called backbefkre the vote.

[OldAle1]

sol has cleverly put it all on me - and then on himself. Well done! Since my three favorite remaining films - including my two favorites from the whole list - were cut this round, I think I have to save one of them. Which one? Forgive me the personal reflections - and maybe sol will do the same? This is what I like about this game; indulge me please...

All three have a bit in common with each other for me if not in general. For one thing, I own books related to each of them (Noriko Smiling about Late Spring, and the novels Пикник на обочине / Roadside Picnic and D'entre les morts / The Living and the Dead on which Stalker and Vertigo were based. All are the peaks of favorite directors; two of them contain an all-time favorite acting performance (Novak in Vertigo and Hara in Late Spring); two have all-time favorite musical scores (Stalker and Vertigo), and all have been part of me for a long time.

Late Spring was probably the last of the three that I saw for the first time, sometime in the mid-late 90s; I liked it a lot, I think, but I watched it in a retrospective with a bunch of other Ozu films and it didn't resonate as a particular favorite until re-seeing it about 5 years ago; I think I watched it within a few days of star Setsuko Hara's death in September 2015. And it was this viewing that catapulted it to where it is today. The theme of parental-child bonds stretching into middle age and after works on me more and more all the time, and Hara's presence overpowers me more with every viewing of this or anything else she's in; that second viewing solidified her place as my favorite actor of any gender and I parcel out her few available unseen films like precious gems, hoping to never hit the last one.

Stalker was my second Tarkovsky, and the experience of seeing it was a wonderful mirror to the film - I got off a train and had to walk for at least a mile in frigid weather, past a landscape of piles of tires, brackish water, melting dirty snow, unpleasant dark factories and broken-windowed abandoned buildings, to see this miraculous film in which almost nothing happens but which creates multitudes in the imagination. I saw all of Tarkovsky's films within the next few years (this was early in the 90s) but this has always been my favorite and even finally submitting to see it on video as I did after the Criterion BD came out did nothing to diminish it. Many of my favorite films have dreamlike qualities; some equal this in their own different ways but certainly none surpass it.

Vertigo is the film I've known longest; I don't think I saw it when it got it's 1983 re-release alongside the other four Hitchcocks (Rear Window, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Trouble With Harry, Rope) that had all been long out of distribution, but I'm pretty sure the Music Box (Chicago) showed that same group around 1988-9 and I saw them all then, all for the first time I think. It knocked me over right away and was an instant top 10-20 film for me - I wish I still had my old lists, would be curious to see where I place it, I was already making top lists at the time - working in an artsy video store and being around other cinephiles and worshipping already at the altar of J. Rosenbaum, it was mandatory. In any case it's been a fixture in my cinematic world for 30+ years now and I've seen it at least 10 times, probably 3 or 4 of them in the cinema. It might be the only film I've seen on film/VHS/DVD/BD. And like the others, I re-watched it relatively recently, I'm thinking 2017 or so, and with my mother - who didn't like it much, I think too depressing for her, too unnerving. I was at that point just about the age James Stewart was when he made the film, and not for the first time I remarked to myself that those who complain about the age difference between him and Novak really just don't get what the film is about - or they just don't want to see a film about that subject at all. It's certainly about the male gaze but no more critical and harsh indictment of that male gaze and the fantastic longing that so many people (but especially men it seems) have for the unattainable has ever been made. It becomes more sad and bitter for me with every year and every viewing.

I will veto Vertigo

[Onderhond]

[OldAle1]

[Coryn]

To be fair I haven't seen Sansho the Bailiff yet, I'll make sure to watch it before the next round.
It'd be a small miracle for me to favourite it and from the looks of it it could've even been one of my cuts, although I try to go into every movie without any prejudice.

[beasterne]

excellent write-up

Thank you for taking the time to share your musings on these three choices! Just like you, I think the personal stories about everyone's favorites is the most interesting part of this exercise. I also think you made the right choice with your veto. Vertigo is a really fantastic film. It works on so many different levels simultaneously, like all great art, and I'm very glad to see it saved here in the end stages of this game. Although Banshun, which I only just watched a month ago to prep for this game and was also a fantastic film, got a 9/10 from me from that single watch and I expect it will hit harder in subsequent viewings.

It's also so interesting to hear the background of when and how Stalker became one of your favorites. Maybe there's hope yet that I'll watch that film at a different time in my life and find those things that I missed the first time.

[OldAle1]

excellent write-up

Thank you for taking the time to share your musings on these three choices! Just like you, I think the personal stories about everyone's favorites is the most interesting part of this exercise. I also think you made the right choice with your veto. Vertigo is a really fantastic film. It works on so many different levels simultaneously, like all great art, and I'm very glad to see it saved here in the end stages of this game. Although Banshun, which I only just watched a month ago to prep for this game was also a fantastic film, got a 9/10 from me from that single watch and I expect it will hit harder in subsequent viewings.

It's also so interesting to hear the background of when and how Stalker became one of your favorites. Maybe there's hope yet that I'll watch that film at a different time in my life and find those things that I missed the first time.

Stalker is definitely the "hardest sell" of the three, and it's probably not surprising that it took longer for Tarkovsky to enter the pantheon - and not just because he's a generation younger than Ozu or Hitch. It hit me at the right moment as I was just taking those early steps into arthouse cinema in the late 80s and early 90s, and it helped that it's science fiction but a strange sort of science fiction - I was just learning about how fluid genre could be I think - and maybe it helped that, at the time, it was a "rare" film and you had to seek it out, wait for it to show up for a single night at an obscure out-of-the way place. It was an event, and I think a lot of why I love film comes out of it being very much associated with the special efforts it often took to seek out these rare films - or the joy of seeing something opening night which you knew little about (because there weren't a zillion internet reviews or stories). It's a different situation now and I wonder whether if I were 25 years younger or heck even 10-15, I'd associate cinema with that "specialness" anymore, now that it's so easy to see almost anything at home, but seeing something in 35mm in the proper setting is even harder than it was when I was growing up. Then again I can re-watch so many favorites now anytime, which wasn't possible then, and I have new favorites that never got any kind of commercial release, and which gained their followings almost entirely through the internet. Six of one, half a dozen of the other I guess.

[Obgeoff]

Excellent write-up oldale. I had my hopes up that Late Spring would earn a reprieve.

[OldAle1]

Excellent write-up oldale. I had my hopes up that Late Spring would earn a reprieve.

It was really a struggle to choose between the three. For a moment I contemplated just rolling a die.

[beasterne]

Well this is interesting, because you're right it was very "easy" for me to watch Stalker for the first time in 2013. I checked out the DVD from my college campus library and watched it on my PS2 which was hooked up to my 25" dorm room tv. So it was very accessible in terms of obtaining the media itself, but a far cry from the theater setting that I would prefer to watch all films in. That year when I was first getting into film I had a chance to watch Il Gattopardo, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Lawrence of Arabia, and Fanny and Alexander in a theater, and it's not surprising that all of those were favorites for me in this list. Wild that so much of our appreciation can be traced to external factors rather than the actual "text" of the film I'll call it. The things that didn't interest me and repelled me in one setting could be the very things that intrigued me and pulled me in in another.

[OldAle1]

Well, that's not true for everybody - some people apparently see little difference between watching something on a 13" laptop in several parts on a train going to and from work, and seeing it in a new 70mm print on a 50' screen with perfect sound. I guess we're all a little different in terms of what's important in the experience - I've known several people who categorically would never eat or drink anything while watching a film for example, and I never went that far.

There was plenty of stuff available on VHS in the 90s, and I worked most of that decade in an artsy video store, in a very large city - and I had good cable also. But if I'm remembering correctly the only Tarkovsky films available at the beginning of that decade were The Sacrifice - which was the first I saw, because the prospects of seeing the others in any timely manner were dim, and I had a coworker who kept raving about him - and Ivan's Childhood which I think didn't come out until a little later. For several years that was it. But Chicago had a pretty solid film scene and all of the features did show up eventually, and they seemed to get more popular over the decade and I managed to see all of them at least twice in the cinema over that time, and I think generally in good condition prints. Rivette - my other major favorite discovery of that period - was scarcer; his new films showed up regularly but the older ones were pretty iffy. And very little was on video of course.

[Onderhond]

To be fair I haven't seen Sansho the Bailiff yet, I'll make sure to watch it before the next round.
It'd be a small miracle for me to favourite it and from the looks of it it could've even been one of my cuts, although I try to go into every movie without any prejudice.

If I remember correctly you had some problem with the classic Japanese performances, right? Well good luck with Sansho

[AB537]

The distinction between watching a film in a theatre and at home (or on another platform) is an interesting one. While it's not mandatory for enjoyment or even to appear very high on my list, there's something about going to a theatre which provides a more holistically rewarding experience. Perhaps it's the relative lack of distractions, or maybe that others are also watching in the same setting, it's hard to say. But for me it's impossible to ignore that many of my (especially non-English language) favourites are films I first saw at a theatre, e.g. La Dolce Vita, Wings of Desire, or others that maybe stand out disproportionately for me as a result, like Smiles of a Summer Night. At a guilty pleasure level, my first viewing of a recent favourite (Atomic Blonde) was on an early date with my (now) wife, and is the first movie we saw together, which surely contributes to its particular place in my personal canon. However, theatres do not play a part in Stalker ranking high on my list - I've relatively recently seen (and loved) it twice in other settings, once on YouTube when a student and more recently on a Criterion DVD.

Also, OldAle's description of his first journey to view Stalker sounds like it could have taken place in the Zone itself.

[OldAle1]

The distinction between watching a film in a theatre and at home (or on another platform) is an interesting one. While it's not mandatory for enjoyment or even to appear very high on my list, there's something about going to a theatre which provides a more holistically rewarding experience. Perhaps it's the relative lack of distractions, or maybe that others are also watching in the same setting, it's hard to say. But for me it's impossible to ignore that many of my (especially non-English language) favourites are films I first saw at a theatre, e.g. La Dolce Vita, Wings of Desire, or others that maybe stand out disproportionately for me as a result, like Smiles of a Summer Night. At a guilty pleasure level, my first viewing of a recent favourite (Atomic Blonde) was on an early date with my (now) wife, and is the first movie we saw together, which surely contributes to its particular place in my personal canon. However, theatres do not play a part in Stalker ranking high on my list - I've relatively recently seen (and loved) it twice in other settings, once on YouTube when a student and more recently on a Criterion DVD.

Also, OldAle's description of his first journey to view Stalker sounds like it could have taken place in the Zone itself.

Great post. It's also fair to say that my age and when I came to cinema makes a difference - I first fell in love with it seeing Star Wars at 11, and of course home video was in it's infancy then, and my cheap parents didn't get a VCR for at least a decade after that, so all of my early experiences were seeing films in the cinema in 35mm, or at home on a crummy small TV, usually with commercials. The difference is impossible to overstate, and that difference remained to a great extent through the VHS and analog TV eras. And for me anyway it's impact has never gone away, though I know there are some in my generation who have adjusted to video fully and now prefer it, even if they still have the choice to see more stuff in the cinema than I do. I think this attitude also has a lot to do with my relatively high ratings compared to many, and in particular ratings of stuff like the MCU films over the past decade - my love of the experience of seeing films in the cinema remains extremely strong almost regardless of how good or bad the film actually is, and I know I overrate more stuff that I see on the big screen than I do stuff at home.

Yeah the Stalker experience is one I'll never forget - and it was actually a semi-typical journey for me to see movies - it's just that it fit Stalker in particular. For anybody that knows Chicago (ok probably nobody, but I'm curious now and looked it up on google maps), it was getting off at the Clybourn stop on the METRA, then walking north on Ashland over the North branch of the Chicago River, then East a short bit on Fullerton to Facets Multimedia. .7 miles or just over a km according to google. Industrial wasteland at that time though it's quite possibly been gentrified and scrubbed clean of all the earlier pre-information-age sludge now. Haven't been back to that area in nearly 20 years.

[prodigalgodson]

I will veto Vertigo

Good man. I've had a hard time choosing between those three too, all members of my top 10 at various points too.

[sol]

I will veto Vertigo

Good choice.

And let's get rid of all vetoes going forward. I'm resurrecting The Third Man and Taxi Driver because if there's one thing that I have learned in this rankdown, it is that we need more crime dramas.

Do we start PMing you with our top 5 of the remaining films now beasterne?

[jeff_v]

Great saves, OldAle and sol.

[beasterne]

We have reached the ballot phase of the game! Congrats to these films for surviving the gauntlet of the previous 9 rounds:

2 Vertigo
13 Ladri di biciclette
15 Taxi Driver
19 Persona
47 The Third Man
55 Chinatown
75 La battaglia di Algeri
91 Sanshô dayû
99 L'année dernière à Marienbad

At this point everyone can PM me your list of the 4 films you wish to cut (or the 5 films you wish to save, whichever is easier). I have already locked in my final 5, and I've PMed myself so that there is a timestamp in case there is any concern of impropriety

No need to rank anything. It's a count of 1 vote per film that's being cut. The 4 films with the highest total of votes to cut will be eliminated, leaving the final 5 to duke it out in the final stage. And remember, if there are any ties for spots in the top 5 we will do a second head-to-head secret ballot as necessary. Additionally, just something for everyone to be aware of, all vetoes have been played so no consideration needs to be given to potential vetoes from here on out in the game.

Good luck to everyone's favorites!

[OldAle1]

Ballot sent. Pretty easy choices for me at this point.

[Fergenaprido]

We have reached the ballot phase of the game! Congrats to these films for surviving the gauntlet of the previous 9 rounds:

2 Vertigo
13 Ladri di biciclette
15 Taxi Driver
19 Persona
47 The Third Man
55 Chinatown
75 La battaglia di Algeri
91 Sanshô dayû
99 L'année dernière à Marienbad

At this point everyone can PM me your list of the 4 films you wish to cut (or the 5 films you wish to save, whichever is easier).

So are we voting to cut or to save? The reason I ask, is I only have 4 films right now that I would save (with one film remaining unseen.... I'll get to it ASAP). Do I have to use all 5 save spots?

[RolandKirkSunglasses]

Voted, no idea which of my 5 will make the final.

[cinewest]

Double post. Shoot

[cinewest]

How does the Rankdown top 9 compare to the TSP top 9?

Well, I have DVD copies of 4 of them, and have been waiting for a re-release from Criterion of a fifth The rest I much prefer to The Searchers, and even Vertigo is not a film I dislike, though I am drawn far more to the revisionist style, writing and performances of a film like Chinatown.
What the TSP top 9 has is better representation of the eras, as it features a silent, as well as a film from the 30's, and in my opinion better choices from Italy and Japan, as well as by decade (except for the 60's). It also represents superior filmmakers, overall, in my OP.

The Rankdown list is also interesting to consider by decade represented, e.g. the 70's, and a comparison of Chinatown to Taxi Driver, etc.

French films have taken the hardest hit in the Rankdown in my estimation....

Any other reflections?? Predictions?

One of my posts didn’t make it, but the gist of it was how all of my favorite films and film experiences have been in a movie theater or professional screening room which is the most impressionable way to watch a movie. I like Ale’s comparison of movies to dreams, and for me that experience is richest in a theater, which also means that some films I may not have connected with so deeply would benefit by a rewatch in a theater.

[beasterne]

We have reached the ballot phase of the game! Congrats to these films for surviving the gauntlet of the previous 9 rounds:

2 Vertigo
13 Ladri di biciclette
15 Taxi Driver
19 Persona
47 The Third Man
55 Chinatown
75 La battaglia di Algeri
91 Sanshô dayû
99 L'année dernière à Marienbad

At this point everyone can PM me your list of the 4 films you wish to cut (or the 5 films you wish to save, whichever is easier).

So are we voting to cut or to save? The reason I ask, is I only have 4 films right now that I would save (with one film remaining unseen.... I'll get to it ASAP). Do I have to use all 5 save spots?

Interesting question, because I’m seeing it as basically the mathematical inverse where 4 to cut or 5 to save would be the same. But if it’s helpful, you can think of this round as CUTTING four films. Submit your ballot of the exactly four (no more, no less) films from the list above that you want to cut. Each film will receive one vote from you, and will be tallied along with cuts from all other players to determine which four films are cut this round.

[Fergenaprido]

Okay, thanks beasterne. Will do as soon as I finish the unseen film.

[sol]

PM sent. I worded it as "5 films that I wish to save" as there's a couple of others that I don't want to think about in terms actively needing to cut them.

[Onderhond]

My four to be chopped are sent. Only one more film left I'd be remotely happy with to see it win.

[toromash]

I sent "5 films to save".

[beasterne]

Thank you to everyone for submitting their cuts! I have received everyone's ballot except Fergenaprido's, so as soon as we get that I can announce the results. I'll share the full results in the thread so there's no imbalance of information going into the final round. Currently, 2 films have already punched their ticket to the final round, and 2 have been mathematically eliminated. The remaining 5 are still alive pending certain tiebreakers.

[Fergenaprido]

Sorry to keep everyone waiting. There were two films expiring on Netflix last night I wanted to see, and after that I was too tired to watch a third.

Just finished the unseen film and sent in my ballot.

[RolandKirkSunglasses]

My guesses for the final 5:

Vertigo
Taxi Driver
Bicycle Thieves
Third Man
Battle of Algiers

[sol]

My guesses for the final 5:

Vertigo
Bicycle Thieves
The Third Man
Chinatown
Persona